CPB’s Public Media Innovation (PMI) fund is the topic of Friday’s (Nov. 19) webinar sponsored by the National Center for Media Engagement. The grants support station work on emerging media platforms. Representatives from KPBS in San Diego, Maryland Public Television, University of Pennsylvania’s WXPN and WKSU at Kent State in Ohio will discuss projects and generating new streams of revenue. Register here for the 1 p.m. Eastern event.

CPB’s Board of Directors at its meeting today (Nov. 16) in New Orleans approved a resolution expressing its “deep concerns about the consequences of NPR’s decisions” in the handling of correspondent Juan Williams’ dismissal — a termination that is now undergoing an external review. It says that the public television and radio systems are “highly interdependent,” which means the “actions of one public media stakeholder can affect the welfare of the others and the public media system as a whole.” The resolution states that public reaction has been “highly critical.” And it concludes that the consequences of NPR’s actions are “renewed challenges to public media’s journalistic integrity, Congressional attempts to reduce or eliminate funding for public media, and the impact such reductions will have on public media’s future programming and services.”

At its meeting in New Orleans today (Nov. 16), the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting elected Bruce Ramer (left) as its new chairman, and David Pryor as vice-chairman. Ramer is an attorney and partner at Gang, Tyre, Ramer and Brown in Beverly Hills, Calif., specializing in entertainment and media. He has been active in public television for nearly 20 years, joining the board of KCET in Los Angeles in 1992 and serving as its chair from 2001 to 2003. He was appointed to the CPB board by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in October 2008.

Two-term Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour called for an end to state subsidies for Mississippi Public Broadcasting in a $5.5 billion fiscal 2012 spending proposal released yesterday. Barbour, who acknowledged at his Nov. 15 news conference that he’s considering a bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, vowed to close the state’s $700 million deficit during his last year as governor, according to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. The budget proposal [PDF] reduces state spending an average of 8 percent, but targets MPB and the state’s arts and library commissions with cuts of 20 percent. Barbour recommends that MPB take a $1.5 million hit in its state appropriation next year, reducing its state aid to just over $6 million.

“The world has changed, but our spectrum allocations still reflect the previous era,” said Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski Monday (Nov. 15) in a speech to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners in Atlanta (full remarks here). He told the audience that by opening spectrum to commercial use in the 20th century, “we made it possible for entrepreneurs to create a large and successful over-the-air broadcast TV industry that in turn helped create our extraordinarily successful U.S. content industry, bringing real benefits to our economy and beyond.” “Fast forward to today,” he said. “Less than ten percent of us — down from 100 percent — still get our television programming from over-the-air broadcast transmissions. 

The Washington Post is reporting that PBS edited out controversial remarks made by Tina Fey (left) during her acceptance speech for the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize last Tuesday night (Nov. 9). Here’s what didn’t make it into the Sunday (Nov. 14) broadcast: “And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women — except, of course, those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape ‘kit ‘n’ stuff. But for everybody else, it’s a win-win. Unless you’re a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years — whatever.

Among the 58 possible federal budget savings recommended by the vice chairs of the president’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform are the entire appropriations to CPB, the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program and the Agriculture Department’s facilities grants to rural public stations. That could put public broadcasting in a congressional bull’s-eye, since a number of bigger items on the list would be too politically devastating to okay. Who on either side of the aisle would vote to boost the retirement age to 69, wipe out income-tax deductions for health benefits and mortgage interest or raise the payroll tax? “The current CPB funding level is the highest it has ever been,” the draft says, with no comment on the merits, and notes that erasing the appropriation would save nearly $500 million in 2015 alone.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recommended today (Nov. 15) that 115 MHz of spectrum be reallocated for wireless broadband service within the next five years. The Federal Communications Commission will need to identify the spectrum by mid-2011 and begin removing broadcasters by mid-2013, it said in a timetable for identifying and releasing spectrum for wireless broadband. President Barack Obama’s goal is to free up some 500 MHz over the next decade. Public broadcast stations will need to decide whether to participate in the voluntary giveback (Current, Feb. 8). While there was talk about using funds from the spectrum auction to create a public broadcasting trust fund, Obama in June signaled he preferred other uses for the cash.

Bills to defund public broadcasting, or at least any radio network that fired Juan Williams, are beginning to seem like a real threat since the Nov. 2 midterm election gave Republicans a 60-plus majority in the House and a mandate to take huge bites out of federal spending. Last week the co-chairmen of President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform — assigned to suggest ways to reduce the $13.7 trillion deficit — advised dropping CPB from the budget, along with some vastly bigger federal expenditures that have even sturdier support in Congress (separate story). For conservative talking heads, ending aid to pubcasting would be a high-profile get-tough symbol.

John Lawson, former president of the Association of Public Television Stations, is the new executive director of the Mobile500 Alliance, the group announced today (Nov. 15). The Alliance is a broadcasting collective working to accelerate availability of mobile digital television, which allows consumers to see live TV on laptops, tablets, smart phones and other mobile devices via a broadcast signal. Lawson will help secure content arrangements and work with electronics manufacturers to enhance device features. Lawson ran APTS from 2001 to 2008. He was e.v.p. of broadcast company ION Media Networks from 2008 until earlier this year. In April, Lawson re-launched his consulting firm, Convergence Services Inc.,

“The big opportunity — and where the most disruption is — is in local media.”—Vivian Schiller, president, NPR “I have little doubt in my mind that, whether it’s us or somebody else, [local news] is going to be a very big space in the future.”—Tim Armstrong, chair and c.e.o., AOL In the front of the room, NPR President Vivian Schiller and AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong are laying out their corporate strategies to almost a thousand online journalists. It’s the lunchtime general session of the Online News Association (ONA) Conference, and the topic is one of the principal challenges for American journalism: how to provide and sustain local news.

Patrick Butler, public TV’s new chief lobbyist, wrote speeches for President Gerald Ford, was a founder of the Pew Research Center, and helped provide Ken Burns with funding for his acclaimed Civil War documentary series. Butler starts work as president of the Association of Public Television Stations Jan. 1. The APTS leader has represented major media firms in Washington — the Washington Post Co. for 18 years, and before that Times Mirror Co. and RCA. He’s also been a member of the APTS Board since 2009  and chair of the MPT Foundation, which raises private funds to supplement state support of the state-owned Maryland Public Television network.

Jim Lehrer, the well-anchored anchor of PBS NewsHour, told the Dallas Morning News that he’ll have to “start drooling on the air” before he’ll retire. Being a journalist, he added, is “a state of mind – some of the youngest people I know in journalism are 76 years old, and some of the oldest are 23. It’s little-boy-and-little-girl work. You hear the fire engine, and you want to know where it’s going. I still want to know.” And, yes, another of his many books is coming out next year, this one called Tension City. It’s about Lehrer’s experiences moderating presidential debates.

Dave Edwards, g.m. of Milwaukee Public Radio (WUWM) for 25 years, who took over this month as chair of the NPR Board, announced a task force that will consider “how we serve the audience through radio programming as well as digital.” The move responds to station leaders’ concerns that NPR’s focus on digital advances has meant that it’s “not spending as much time on radio as we should,” Edwards said. Task force members will “examine the economics of the programming landscape and articulate the role that NPR should play in that space,” he said, building on the recommendations from Station Resource Group’s “Grow the Audience” report and a recent audience study commissioned by NPR Research.

Reacting to NPR’s abrupt image makeover — from ascendant news organization to partisan punching bag  — the network’s board last week hired an outside firm to investigate the decisions that invited the comedown, the dismissal of news analyst Juan Williams.Dave Edwards, the board’s new chair, announced that Weil, Gotshal & Manges, a 20-office multinational law practice, is leading the internal review initiated last month. Weil is “highly regarded with considerable expertise in governance issues,” Edwards said, shortly after the board unanimously elected him as its new leader.Security guards with metal detectors checked the unusually large number of onlookers at the Nov.